Friday, 21 August 2015

AVUNCULAR MEANDERINGS

I'm going through a bit of a Man From Uncle phase at the moment, and watched the pilot episode 'Solo', the other day.

There are few small differences to how the series finally turned out, but it was still an enjoyable sixties spy yarn.

Robert Vaughn is the suave UNCLE agent Napoleon Solo, with hair so slick you could run your car on it!

Del Florias is still the way in to UNCLE HQ

David McCallum appears briefly as Illya Kuryakin, but as the original format didn't feature a sidekick for Solo he doesn't get much to do. He also sports the badge no. 17, rather than the more familiar no.2.

In Solo, UNCLE is run by Mr Allison, played by Will Kuluva, rather than Leo G. Carroll's, Mr Waverly. Rumour has it that an executive didn't want the 'K' character. Sam Rolfe, who created the show thought they'd meant Mr Kuluva, however it transpired they'd meant the Russian, Illya Kuryakin!

Solo, whose episode title was 'The Vulcan Affair' was re-edited to create the feature film, To Trap ASpy.

Another point of interest is the main antagonists were originally to be called WASP, however over in Britain some guy called Gerry Anderson was already using the acronym in 'Stingray', so WASP became THRUSH.

Not fussed about the film either. Didn't see the Avengers remake. I suppose these remakes are aimed squarely at a new younger generation. Wouldn't mind a new UNCLE attache case toy if they bring one out though!